


follow those who pale in your shadow

by prometheancurse



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, Low Chaos Emily, Non-Binary Wyman, background mentions of emily/alexi and emily/wyman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-09-02 15:25:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8672629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prometheancurse/pseuds/prometheancurse
Summary: The Outsider’s Mark doesn’t pain her anymore except when she chooses to use its powers, but beneath the silk wrappings, the back of her hand still feels tender— a constant reminder of all she had lost and everything she has yet to do to get it back.





	1. Chapter 1

For the first time in years, you dream of the day your mother died.

You’re ten years old again.

A masked man drives a sword through her stomach, and her terror-stricken face ripples as you watch, frightened and helpless and sobbing for her, unable to save her or defend yourself.

You cannot remember your mother’s face — her _real_ face, not the elegant portraits of Empress Jessamine Kaldwin that are still hung up everywhere in Dunwall — but it becomes paler, more gaunt, and she is taller now and clothed in black, all roses and thorns and hateful stare.

And then you’re back at the throne room.

You dream of the bloodshed and the screams, and of Delilah’s sneering voice as she crouches over you, taunting, gloating.

_Little sparrow, blackened by bad memories._

Even in your dreams, the resemblance between your mother and this usurper who claims to be your aunt is too much.

Delilah morphs into Alexi. Dear, sweet Alexi, who used to laugh and giggle with you when you were both children. Your childhood companion had been such a comfort to you, those early years after your mother’s death and during Dunwall’s slow recovery from the rat plague. You remember how you loved to braid Alexi’s long, beautiful hair into fishtail braids; the way she kept her hair in one long braid all these years later, even after she became captain of the City Watch.

Another thing you remember: the first kiss you shared with her at fourteen, that night after your carriage was attacked. You and Alexi had been whisked back into your chambers in Dunwall Tower right after the attack and fussed over by Corvo, who’d ordered extra guards at your door and would have never left you two girls alone if you hadn’t put your foot down. The fight at the carriage had left you with a heady rush of excitement and adrenaline instead of fear, for you were no stranger near-death experiences, but Alexi had been terribly shaken by the events of the day.

You weren’t sure how to thank Alexi, how to tell her how brave she’d been by throwing the grenade out the window. And so you kissed her.

It had felt like the bravest thing you’ve ever done, braver than when you’d taken up a railway brace and beat the man who almost killed Alexi unconscious.

Eleven years later, you were unable to save Alexi when Ramsay killed her. And now you’re forced to watch in your dreams as, once again, another person you love is stabbed through the stomach and taken away from you.

Alexi Mayhew’s form shifts. The next thing you know, you’re in the throne room once more and there is your father, rugged and grim and careworn as always, with crows-feet at the corners of his eyes. Corvo Attano is weaponless and stripped of his powers, but still he attempts to shield you from Delilah, puts his life on the line for you like he did all those years ago.

One single command from the witch, and the light in Corvo’s eyes dies as he is turned into cold grey marble.

Your mother.

Corvo.

Alexi.

All of them, gone. Everyone you love, who put their lives on the line to protect you.

 

* * *

 

Emily wakes drenched in cold sweat, and when she bolts upright from the bed, shivering in the darkness, her breathing ragged, it’s several long moments before she remembers where she is.

She isn’t dreaming and this isn’t the Void.

The Dreadful Wale. Meagan Foster’s ship.

A world away from Dunwall, from the familiarity of her own vast chambers.

The cluttered guest room Meagan had set out for Emily reminds her of the Imperial safe room in Dunwall Tower for its compact size and state of lived-in disarray. After weeks of living the life of a fugitive at sea, the room is the closest thing to a home she currently has.

With the whirr and rattle of engines, its creaks and groans, the ship feels like a living thing, a creature stirring fitfully in its sleep. _The belly of a beast_.

The cold light seeping through the crack of the porthole tells her it’s near dawn. Giving up on sleep as a lost cause, she gets out of bed to wash up at the grubby sink, and changes into the spare clothes Meagan had given her when she first came aboard. All Emily has left to call her own on the ship is what she was able carry with her from Dunwall Tower— weapons, elixirs, a couple of books and maps that might be of use, money looted from her own safe, the clothes on her back.

The clothes fit Emily even though the other woman is shorter and slighter than she is. Still, Emily shrugs her now torn and dusty coat on over them, tugs on the boots she’d been wearing during her escape from Dunwall, and sheaths Corvo’s sword to the belt at her side, before winding her neckerchief about her neck— out of habit more than anything else.

She can feel the Heart beating quietly within her coat pocket as she treads out onto the corridor. It’s a calm, steady rhythm, as comforting as the lullabyes her mother used to sing to her as a child.

There is light spilling out from the open door to Hypatia’s makeshift bedroom, but Hypatia’s nowhere to be found. On a stack of crates that now doubles as a work-desk is a writing set, a storm of scattered notes and open journals andaudiographs— all the signs of a sleepless night spent hard at work.

Emily finds the doctor watching the sunrise when she climbs up onto the open deck.

Hypatia’s gazing out into the distance, her forearms braced against the railing, and she doesn’t glance around at the sound of Emily footsteps.

“Can't sleep as well, Your Highness?”

Emily walks over to join Hypatia. “Just a nightmare.”

Neither of them speaks. The breeze is cool, the air salt-tinged, and Emily drinks the gentle slosh of waves against hull and the caw of the gulls. In another lifetime, she thinks, she would have enjoyed spending the rest of her days as a seafarer. And maybe once this is all over, if she manages to return to Dunwall, defeat Delilah and rescue Corvo and set things to rights, she can leave again. Can travel the world with— with Wyman—

She stops the thought in its tracks before she can indulge in it any further. She won’t survive this entire ordeal, let alone see Wyman again, if she allows these foolish daydreams to distract her.

So Emily pulls herself back into the present, focuses instead on the dark outline of Karnaca on the horizon and the quiet presence of Alexandria Hypatia at her side.

Karnaca in the distance is a beautiful thing, a jewel glinting in the soft grey early-morning light _._ From a distance, it is almost too easy to fall in love with Karnaca, the glittering facade that masks the horrors and atrocities that lurk in the depths of the city.

It’s Hypatia who breaks the silence first, her voice low and thoughtful. “You see them in your dreams too, do you? Those who died.”

Emily glances sideways at her. A few days have passed since Addermire, but there is still a haunted quality to the doctor’s eyes, heavy shadows beneath them and an ill cast to her face.

Hypatia understands. Of course she understands.

Everything that has been weighing heavy on Emily’s mind ever since her escape from Dunwall comes spilling out.

“I saw them again,” Emily whispers, turning her gaze back toward the sea. “My mother. Corvo and Alexi. The people of Dunwall. I couldn’t save them. I keep thinking I could have done something, should have…” She trails off, and her grip on the railing tightens, knuckles growing white with strain. The Outsider’s Mark doesn’t pain her anymore except when she chooses to use its powers, but beneath the silk wrappings, the back of her hand still feels tender— a constant reminder of all she had lost and everything she has yet to do to get it back.

“I’m sorry,” Emily says at last. “About Vasco, and what Luka Abele made you do as the Crown Killer. If there is anything I can do...”

But what else can she do? She still feels useless despite everything she’s done, nobody but a fugitive running for her life, an empress without a crown.

Hypatia, too, had lost everything. And Emily finds herself trusting her, even though she still remembers the pure hatred in the Crown Killer’s eyes, her vicious snarls and taunts, right before Emily had injected the counter-serum into the shell of the kind, soft-spoken woman and brought Hypatia back to herself.

“When the serum took hold— when I lost control and Grim Alex took over...I did things I wasn't proud of. Things I can’t even remember. The Crown Killer butchered men and women who opposed you, and even though it was against my will, I am still at fault.”

Emily wants to protest, to tell Hypatia that it was Luka Abele, and not Doctor Alexandria Hypatia, who manipulated the Crown Killer to cause the murders. But before she can say anything, Hypatia continues.

“Once I’m fully recovered, I intend to continue with my research. The silver miners of Karnaca and their families still need my aid. I may not be able to resume my work in the Addermire Institute, but that does not mean I must abandon everything I have worked towards all my life. Perhaps in this way, I can begin to make up for my part in Vasco’s death, and the death of everyone else who fell at the hands of the Crown Killer.”

Another long silence hangs in the air.

Hypatia turns around to lean her back against the railing, and glances up at the heights of the ship. A small, wane smile flickers across her lips. “Ah, but I see we are not the only two awake at this hour.”

Emily follows Hypatia’s gaze up toward the ship's bridge. Sure enough, there’s a figure visible behind the windows in the clear dawn light, a one-armed silhouette pacing restlessly to and fro.

“I spoke with Foster the other day,” says Hypatia. “She’s a mystery, that woman. Keeps to herself most of the time, but her heart is in the right place. And she does care for Sokolov. More, perhaps, than she’ll ever let on.” Hypatia’s voice is tinged with guilt, and Emily can sense that the doctor still hasn’t forgiven herself for Anton Sokolov’s kidnap. “This may be too much to ask for, but— bring him back safe. Please. For both of us.”

Emily nods. “I will.”

She had saved Hypatia from the Crown Killer. That...that must count for something, one life saved in the midst of everything she’d lost, all her failures and mistakes. And Sokolov, the gruff old man Emily remembers from her childhood— she’ll rescue him as well, and in the process find out whatever she can from Kirin Jindosh’s mansion that can aid her in the fight against Delilah.

“Come,” Hypatia says lightly, pushing away from the railing. “Let’s see if Captain Foster is in the mood for breakfast.”

Morning sees the three of them in the mess hall, sharing a plate of fruits, burnt sausages and over-toasted bread. Hypatia’s a terrible cook and so is Emily, both of them far too used to meals brought to them by servants, but Meagan doesn’t to mind in the least, and eats her share without complaining. She does complain, however, when Emily props her boots up on the table, and Emily just laughs it off.

For the first time since the coup, Emily allows herself to feel at ease. The Dreadful Wale may be a rickety old thing crumbling from the inside out, but it’s a shelter, however small, from the storm Delilah had conjured up. Emily Kaldwin has allies, a temporary home. For the first time, she feels free.


	2. Chapter 2

Another week passes, and Emily escapes from the Clockwork Mansion with Anton Sokolov in tow, the old man frail and unconscious and far too light in her arms as she hauls him over the canal to Meagan Foster.

Meagan keeps a constant vigil at Sokolov’s bedside during the first few days of his rescue. She barely sleeps, hardly ever eats, and spends most of her time curled up cat-like in the only chair in the old painter’s bedroom as she waits for him to stir, her one eye glinting in the dim oil-lamp light.

It tugs at Emily’s heart to see Meagan’s composure fracture like this, but she knows that any word of hollow comfort will be lost on the other woman. Emily still remembers the nights after her rescue from the Golden Cat, when Corvo would come back to Hound Pits Pub wounded and close to collapsing. She had resented the kind, useless words from Callista and the other adults, back then.

The best thing— the only thing— she can do is keep Meagan company, or try to convince the woman to eat something other than the tins of jellied eels or whale meat lying about on the ship.

It’s up to both Emily and Doctor Hypatia to take care of menial errands aboard the Dreadful Wale. There is so much to do: leaky pipes that need fixing, rat infestations in the engine room, inventories to check, along with a hundred other tasks, and the work leaves Emily with hardly any time to plan her next move. Being stagnant puts her on edge, conscious of the fact that every moment wasted is every moment her aunt can use against her, but she tells herself that laying low is a wiser option than rushing back to Dunwall without a plan.

Once, Emily had gone into Sokolov’s room once to check up on him, and had found Meagan asleep in her usual chair. Meagan’s head was tilted to the side, and she didn’t stir when Emily placed a cup of water on the workbench next to her. On reckless impulse, Emily had taken the Heart out of her pocket and pointed it in Meagan’s direction.

 _She is a woman formed of three fathers,_ her mother’s voice whispered when she squeezed the Heart. _A drunkard, a killer, and an artist._

This tells her nothing in the way of Meagan’s secrets, but still she'd felt a sharp slice of guilt when she heard Meagan shift in her seat, as though the other woman had caught her prying into something she should never had looked into.

Eventually, some form of routine develops on board the Dreadful Wale. Meagan has her hands full taking care of Sokolov while Emily tends to the ship. Hypatia prepares for her return to Karnaca. Sokolov recuperates, but curses up a storm every step of the way to recovery.

While Doctor Alexandria Hypatia’s preferred method of recovery is to throw herself into a flurry of research, Sokolov’s is to paint anyone and everyone that comes to mind. He continues working on the portrait of Delilah he'd been painting before his kidnap. When that is done, he moves on to painting Meagan, then Emily, and eventually Hypatia as well. The women indulge him in this, sitting patiently for him while he mixes colours and  swirls paint onto canvas. The portraits are sombre as fits Sokolov’s particular style, but the growing amount of them laid out to dry in the mess hall almost brightens the place, almost makes it feel like home.

Both Meagan and Sokolov are understandably wary of the doctor at first. Meagan is curt with Hypatia, speaking to her only when spoken to, and Emily doesn’t miss the way the captain watches Hypatia like a hawk whenever Hypatia looks in on Sokolov.

Soon, however, things begin to change. It's thanks to Hypatia’s efforts that Sokolov makes a full recovery in no time. Meagan no longer plays mother hen to the old artist, and eventually becomes confident enough in his ability to do things without her help that she spends her nights back in her own makeshift bedroom in the ship’s bridge. Emily passes by the mess hall on her way to the kitchen one morning to find Hypatia and Sokolov deep in conversation over coffee, comparing notes and discussing the formulas to serums with names Emily can’t pronounce.

The last meal before Hypatia is due to return to Karnaca is a silent, dour affair.

Sokolov scoffs down his share with his nose in some book or another.

Hypatia is more flighty and distracted than usual.

Meagan keeps throwing glances at Hypatia throughout the meal, and Emily can’t help but wonder if it is relief Meagan feels at the idea of finally being rid of the woman once known as Grim Alex.

At Sokolov’s insistence, all four of them retire to the nook behind the mess hall with a bottle of wine and spend the rest of the night playing cards. They have to teach Hypatia the rules— she had never played before— and it is Emily who wins the most rounds.

The heaviness in the air eventually dissipates as laughter takes its place.

The night winds down.

And after Sokolov takes his leave of the women, yawning and stretching as he limps off, Emily cheerily puts her cards down and sweep up her winnings, and tells the other two that she might turn in for the night as well. She will be facing Breanna Ashworth tomorrow, after all, and needs all the rest she can get.

She leaves Meagan and Hypatia alone among the piles of crates, and thinks of writing a letter to Wyman.

 

* * *

 For the first time in fifteen years, Billie Lurk wakes in someone else’s bed. The hard cot is technically _hers_ , being a part of the Dreadful Wale’s amenities, but in the few weeks since Alexandria had taken up residence in the spare room, Billie had come to think of it as the doctor’s instead.

She wasn't sure at what point she'd allowed herself to let down her guard around Alexandria Hypatia. Perhaps it was the woman’s earnestness, her eagerness to make amends with Billie and Sokolov by involving herself in Sokolov’s healing, that made Billie’s resistance begin to crumble.

A part of Billie only wishes it hadn’t taken her this long to finally give in. Wishes that this will not be their first and final night together, that they could have had more time.

Alexandria is already up and dressed, although her shirt is still unbuttoned, and is putting away her audiograph recordings, books and papers, instruments, clothes, with methodical neatness.

Billie watches her awhile from the comfort of the cot before sitting up, swinging her legs over the side, and tries not to think of how forlorn and empty the room looks with most of Alexandria’s possessions now packed away. She also tries not to think about the night that is to come, a long tense night spent huddled in the skiff, waiting in the dark for Emily to return from the Royal Conservatory— from confronting Breanna Ashworth.

 _Madness,_ she thinks, _to pin all our hopes on a girl-empress who had hardly ever seen the world beyond the gilt and fineries of Dunwall Tower before now._

When she confesses her fears to Alexandria,  the doctor merely laughs. “Emily Kaldwin isn’t the spoilt brat of Dunwall Tower you seemed determined to think of her as, Foster. Our Empress had survived assassins and rebels— she is more than capable of handling herself against Delilah Copperspoon’s witches.”

“I know that,” Billie says sharply. “I also know what Breanna and her ilk are capable of.”

For a flickering moment, Billie entertains the notion of  telling Alexandria about Daud and Whalers, the witches, everything she kept behind the locked doors of her storeroom. The shame still clings to Billie like the scar of an old wound, the shame of how easily she had been seduced by the promise of power. By  _Delilah_.

True, she had been young then, far too naive and gullible and in over her head, but it had been Billie Lurk who’d caused her own destruction by offering herself up to Delilah in the first place.

Everything she does, she does in an attempt to outrun the shadow of Delilah Copperspoon. But now that the witch has come back from the dead and is conspiring with Breanna Ashworth, Billie knows that she will have to stand and confront this shadow eventually.

Not today, though.

Billie crawls out of Alexandria’s cot to get dressed. As she tugs on her boots, she says, “When this is over— if our Empress wins again the usurper and we all survive— you should return to Dunwall one day.” _Return to find me again,_ is what she wants to say. She does not, because she doesn’t know if she’ll stay in Dunwall herself, doesn’t even know if she’ll live to the the end of the witch’s reign.

“Perhaps I will.”

Alexandria’s eyes are soft and kind and so unlike Delilah’s, and it is exactly that which makes Billie look away.

Billie reaches for the door handle, but a hand closes on her wrist before she can turn it. She tenses at first, but doesn’t resist when Alexandria tugs her towards her. Alexandria is not Delilah Copperspoon, she has to remind herself. The hand on her wrist is not Delilah’s bony vice-grip, and the warm mouth pressing lightly on her own feels nothing like the witch’s lips of ice and poisoned honey. Billie’s own lips curl into a smile against Alexandria’s, despite herself.

Billie is older now, wiser, no longer the wide-eyed desperate youth who had let herself be moulded into a witch’s plaything only to be cast aside once her usefulness was done.

The witch cannot hurt her here. Here, she is safe and free from Delilah Copperspoon’s ensnarement.

She thinks, _You fool, Billie. You should have run when you had the chance. Do so now, before it’s too late, and save everyone trouble. You’re bad luck._

The way people had looked at her on the streets, after Deirdre's death. How they had spat at her, threw rocks at her. And years afterward, her treachery and exile from the Whalers. Stilton, her old friend, who she had been too late to save from Delilah's conspirators. Billie Lurk is thrice-cursed, and perhaps it is a good thing that Alexandra will leave before she too can be taken from her.

“Take care of yourself, Captain Foster,” Alexandria says, when Billie finally pulls away with some reluctance.

Billie Lurk may be cursed, but Meagan Foster is not. She can still run a little further, be Meagan Foster a little while longer.

It feels like a goodbye, and perhaps it really is. There will be no chance for parting words that _meant_ something, later, if their Empress decides to be there for Alexandra’s departure from the Dreadful Wale.

“Stay safe, Doctor Hypatia,” Billie says.

That will have to do.

 

* * *

Emily had no intention of eavesdropping, but the lower decks of the Dreadful Wale had not been built with privacy in mind. Muffled voices float toward her in the narrow corridor from Hypatia’s room as she heads to the mess hall for breakfast.

Curiosity gets the better of her, and she stops in her tracks to listen.

“Take this. I’d feel better knowing you have a remedy with you, in case anything happens.”

“Thank you.” The other voice is Meagan’s, low and calm.

Then footsteps. Emily takes a hasty step back just in time for the door to open. Meagan stalks out, almost colliding with Emily, and halts in her tracks when she notices who it is. She blinks up at Emily for a moment, then says stiffly, "Good morning, Your Highness."

There’s something in her hand— a bottle of Addermire Solution, the liquid a bright shimmering blue in the gloom— but Meagan slips the bottle into her coat before Emily can comment on it.

They walk side-by-side toward the mess hall in companionable silence.

“I’m taking Alexandria back to shore on the skiff after breakfast,” Meagan says. Emily isn’t sure if it’s just her imagination, but the woman’s voice sounds flatter than normal, almost resigned. And since when did Meagan start calling the doctor Alexandria? “You’re welcome to see her off as well, if you want.”

Emily steals a sidelong look at her. Meagan’s face is perfectly blank, inscrutable as always.

It takes a moment before the pieces fall into place in Emily’s head.

“Thanks, Foster,” she says finally, “but I’d prefer to stay here and lay low until dark. Although—” she pauses, then takes a letter out from her coat. “Would you give this to Doctor Hypatia to post?”  Her letter to Wyman. She’d hesitated over every sentence, finding it difficult to convey everything that had happened over the course of the past weeks into words. She only hopes Wyman won’t think too poorly of her for taking so long to write to them.

Meagan accepts the letter with a nod. “Of course.”

Later, Emily uses her Far Reach to climb up onto the highest point of the Dreadful Wale as Meagan and Hypatia depart on the skiff. She sit on the edge with her legs dangling, and watches the skiff’s shadow cut a path across blue waters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (thanks to garysinises and mataalturtle for the beta!)
> 
> tbh I have an epilogue all drafted out (hence the slightly rushed ending), but the epilogue's entirely in Billie's PoV and this fic actually begain as an Emily character-study piece, so I'm not sure how well it might fit into this piece.
> 
> also, I'm on tumblr at @nonbinarybriarmoss!


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